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what do you mean "how could WE have doubted him"? keep it to yourself.
Venue - AT&T CenterNovember 26th, 2015
Mavs 9-6 @ Spurs 11-3
Synopsis
In what turned out to be an ugly (from an offensive standpoint), slow paced game, the Spurs ground out a victory over the surprising Dallas Mavericks. The Mavericks were a consensus pick to miss the playoffs at the beginning of the season, but coming into the Nov 25th contest were in a surprising 4th place in the conference at 9-6. Despite the failings of the Rockets and Clippers, the Mavs have been a solid team thus far in the season, with wins over Boston and the aforementioned Rockets. With Wes Matthews regaining health, the Mavs might push for a playoff spot this season. In this game however, the Spurs put the clamps on early and often. Swarming hands and quick on-ball defense was the highlight of the game for the Spurs, punctuated by 21 Maverick turnovers. Several times the Spurs pulled away a bit and it felt that they would drop the hammer, but that moment never came, as the Mavs scraped back from deficits of 12, 11, and 12 in the first three quarters to really make a game of it in the 4th, where the largest lead for the Spurs was 6 points early on. However, the defense stayed tough, and the Spurs pulled out a win, notching their 12th of the season in just 15 games. For those of you keeping score, that equates to a ~65/66 win pace. Not bad, regardless of the easy schedule early on.
Result:Spurs win 88-83
Player of the Game
It's basically a foregone conclusion at this point. Kawhi Leonard continues to amaze at both ends of the court. There is not a better defender in the world at any position, and tonight Kawhi was the most potent weapon the Spurs had -- on offense as well as defense. His defensive rotations onto whoever the Mavs tried to get a switch were very well timed, and his hands were always coming to assist in bottling up ball handlers. Kawhi is learning as a player when to commit to attacking the ball, and it's showing up as the year progresses. Additionally, he had an efficient day on offense as well -- going 9-16 from the field. More notable is the fact that Leonard is honing his 3 point stroke, as his 4-7 mark from beyond the arc can attest to tonight. Chip in 8 boards, 5 dimes and a couple of steals (with several deflections and shot alterations) and you have a complete performance from the reigning DPOY. Grade A performance from Kawhi, as he did it all tonight, including this clutch 3 to drop the hammer on any ideas Dallas had about a win in our building.
Tony Parker: A
Tony had one of his best games of the season on both sides of the court. Let’s get the negative out of the way: He did get burned a few times on D. However, aside from that, Parker was doing everything right in this game. His ball movement was excellent, if he was dribbling he was in attack mode, and his shot was hitting whenever he pulled up or went to the rack. This is exactly the kind of play the Spurs need if they want a shot at dethroning the Warriors this season. Parker shot 7-11 to go for 16 points, but he also had 8 assists and a season high 8 rebounds as well, just missing a triple double. He seemed to get to the tin whenever he felt like it. What’s more, his defense was energetic and pesky, he was consistently fighting through screens and chasing his man, which paid off nicely with some altered shots on the recovery.
LaMarcus Aldridge: A-
There was a lot to love about Aldridge's performance tonight. On offense, LMA did a find job of picking his spots to contribute, and he was 2nd among all scorers with 18. He seemed to move much better off the ball tonight and didn't appear to clog the lane unnecessarily at any point in his 34+ minutes on the floor. On defense, the story gets even better: Aldridge hustled constantly and wasn't hesitant to collapse on the ball when a move to the hoop was being made. His defense on switches was generally excellent and he was constantly giving Dallas fits by filling up the lane and forcing them to work for points. Easily one of his better defensive nights, and the frontcourt of the Spurs was absolutely crushing to the Mavs, who never seemed to find any sort of rhythm on offense (aside from Devin Harris, who needs to be reminded that this isn't 2013 anymore). Good signs from LMA, if his shot gets a little more consistent, our starting 5 could be very scary indeed.
Danny Green: C
I firmly believe that at some point, be it 20 or 60 days down the road, we'll look back at this time of the season and think, "Man, how could we have ever doubted him?" But the simple fact is that Danny Green's shot is not falling right now. It's not consistent, and unless he's wide open, it's probably not going to go down. That's a pretty big problem, because if you have a 3 & D guy who's only shooting.... 32.... percent (really? Ouch.) from beyond the arc, it just leaves his D. Which, thankfully, was great tonight. He was constantly all over the place, be it guarding Deron Williams and his, let's call it "stocky" frame, or crashing into the paint to swipe at Dirk or Zaza, Green still made himself into a pest. It's just a pity that his shot wasn't on yet again tonight, because this game could have been put away in the 3rd quarter with some of the looks he had.
Tim Duncan: Uhhhhh... B-?
Want to explore an exercise in frustration? Try to grade The Forever Man this season. It's tough, let me tell you. Tim Duncan's ego simply does not need to be fed by constantly giving him the ball. Tonight, his desire to score took a back seat to the triple-combo of Tony, Kawhi, and LaMarcus, who all shot well for the game, and he was an all-around badass on defense (nothing new). Duncan led all Spurs with 9 boards, and despite only scoring 2 points, the team just looked more stable with Tim on the court. 2 points in 4 shots might be far from ideal, but on a night when other players were hitting, I think Duncan was content to let them take the reins. With Aldridge, Kawhi, and Green, the Spurs trot out 4 players on D who are all very, very good defensively. As much as they might struggle on offense at times, defensively they are absolutely fantastic to watch. Duncan, at age 39 with a level 5 wizard beard, is still the anchor of the best defense in the NBA.
Manu Ginobili: D+
Given the level of play up to this point in the season (at one point, Manu was 6th overall in PER for the entire league), I'm willing to give Manu a mini-pass on this game, but the long and short of it was that he just wasn't great. Anytime a player has more turnovers (4) than made shots (2), you know it's a night that they were struggling to find the rhythm. And credit Dallas for aggressively attacking Manu before he could setup the offense and then pick them apart as he does with so many teams. It's easy to see why Carlisle is such a fantastic coach -- he knows how to take opposing players out of their comfort zones, and he did that quite well with Manu tonight, who was just 2-12 from the field. Still, Manu is moving very well and his energy level was good for most of the night in the 28 minutes he was on the court. More good things to come this season from Manu.
Patty Mills: D+
Eesh. Patty simply tried to do too much on the court tonight. His ball handling wasn't the best, his shot wasn't falling, and he got burned repeatedly on defense. It's not uncommon for Patty to occasional give up buckets on D, but he's usually not a turnstile on D, as was the case tonight. He did stay active and energetic, which keeps his grade from being lower, as did his two steals on D, but the Spurs bench as a collective unit was stagnant on O tonight and not very strong defensively.
David West: B
Little by little, I'm coming around to the things that West is bringing to his game with the Spurs. He only played 11:39 tonight, but he was far and away the best player off the bench for the Spurs. He knocked down all 3 shots he took, and hauled in a couple of rebounds as well. Had a few more shots fallen from other players to push the lead, I think West would have gotten 20+ minutes, but unfortunately the game stayed close, so Pop left Kawhi and LMA in for most of the game. West seems to be finding his role in the system and picking his spots better on offense. Defense seems to be improving as well, although he still seems perhaps a half step slow on that side of the court. Whatever. He's still better than Bonner.
Boris Diaw: C+
I was actually a little disappointed that we didn't see more Boris tonight. As soon as he stepped on the court, he started fighting for rebounds and won a scrum over 3 Maverick players. Yet in 10 minutes Boris failed to score, and I think Pop felt that our offense needed more speed on this night, so Boris didn't get much PT. A bit alarming really, as in the past 3 games Boris has averaged just under 12 minutes per and only has two points in that same time span. Is he on his way to Pop's doghouse, or is Pop just trying to distribute the minutes around? Either way, some worrying signs for our favorite croissant lover.
Rasual Butler & Kyle Anderson: INC
Butler played just 6 minutes and looked all sorts of discombobulated out there, and Anderson didn't even get 2 minutes of game time, which is somewhat disappointing. I swear I saw Ray swap in for a few seconds in the 2nd Quarter as well he isn't listed in the game minutes. Either way, not much to talk about here.
Offense: D+
The raw numbers look okay, particularly from our big 3 in scoring, but we gotta find ways to put more than 88 points up on Dallas when they're on a SEGABABA. The bench in particular didn't seem capable of scoring at all tonight, perhaps another testament to the disruptive defense that Carlisle plays.
Defense: A
I thought there were some lapses that allowed the Mavs to get back into the game, but overall we held a fairly potent Mavs lineup down enough that Carlisle actually put in Charlie Villanueva in for 12 minutes of game time, which is the most he's played since November 14th in a fairly dominant win over Houston. Devin Harris continues to be the Spurs' bane, but he also fouled out in just 16 minutes of really chippy play. Overall though, the rotations are vastly improved, at least for the starters, and everything seems to be coming together quite nicely.
Gregg Popovich: A-
Loving the fact that Pop played Kawhi 40 minutes, realizing that the youngster was hot and we needed him on both sides of the court. Pop let his guys really attack on defense tonight, and it paid off as Dallas's ball movement was completely cut off at several points. You could see Dwight Powell in particular looking extremely frustrated and confused by the constant motion of the Spurs hands and feet, and he coughed it up a couple of times immediately after coming into the game. I would have liked to see more David West on a night when we were struggling to get points -- his shot seems to be falling with more frequency as of late. In fact, going back to November 18th, he's 15-22 from the field. Definitely positive signs there. Overall though, another great job by Pop. He has to be pleased with the intensity our starting 5 is playing on defense right now.
Notables:
Dirk Nowitzki became just the 17th player in NBA history to reach 1,600 threes made on Tuesday night against Memphis. Easily the greatest shooting big of all time, although KD might want to say something about that in a few years.
JJ Barea left the game with what appeared to be a badly sprained ankle that occurred far from the play and with no contact -- he just stepped on it wrong and went down hard. From personal experience, I can tell that he'll probably miss several games, as he had to be helped off the court and went straight to the locker room in a good deal of pain.
Chandler Parsons was a DNP for the game, meanwhile Wesley Matthews returning from a season ending injury last year, logged 36 minutes -- the most he has all season.
Check out the Spurs pre-game handshakes:
http://www.gfycat.com/IllfatedReflectingAnteater
Around the league:
Charlotte positively buried the Wizards tonight with a 25-0 run in the 4th quarter.
Jason Kidd was ejected after slapping the ball out of a refs hands in Milwaukee's game against Sacramento.
New Orleans appears to be righting the ship, as they've won 3 in a row to improve to 4-11 on the season, and believe it or not in the West this year that means they are just 3 games out of a playoff spot behind the 7-8 Clippers.
Next up for the Spurs:
They travel to Denver on November 27th to play the Nuggets. Game time 8PM (CT) on Fox Sports Southwest. Afterward they play a pair of very good EC teams, hosting Atlanta and then traveling to Chicago.
Last edited by Cry Havoc; 11-26-2015 at 05:17 AM.
what do you mean "how could WE have doubted him"? keep it to yourself.
Nice grades ... thx.
But what is this about Nowitzki reaching 1,600 points? He has like 28,000 ...
Great write-up. IMO, Pop is just limiting Diaw's minutes due to all the minutes he's played the past year or so; doubt he's in the doghouse. As for West, I was more excited about his signing than LMA; dude just has an amazing feel for the game and screams team player. Wasn't all that happy with Pop's coaching tonight (as well as most of the season for that matter), but he played his big guns in Kawhi and LMA big minutes so he didn't completely things up. Manu finally had a terrible game and the Spurs still won (against a good opponent nonetheless), so that's good.
In other news, Carlisle is the best coach in the NBA; guy turns into gold on the regular.
I don't doubt him as a player, but I do worry about his shot when it goes up. That's all. I'm sure he'll get his stroke back, it's just not falling right now.
Ha, I figured I'd botch something. Dirk hit 1,600 3 pointers made. Edited it in there, thanks for the heads-up.
Thanks.I tried to add some more info tonight and focus on individual situations I saw in the game, as well as other categories, so far I'm pleased with the presentation.
Carlisle is definitely the best coach in the league outside of Pop.
Ascending
Thanks for the grades...
That makes more sense! Quite an accomplishment for a 7 foot guy. Him and Tony looked done in Eurobasket but have recovered nicely within the comfort zone of their NBA teams ..
Again, Kawhi was REALLY bad on D for his standards. He kept losing his man or got burned by gambling. Don't let Matthews' percentage fool you into think Kawhi shut down another SF. Obviously, Leonard was unreal offensively. But he didn't carry his load on the other end of the floor.
Lamarcus was looking pretty good right up to the point that he turned his ankle. Glad to hear that it wan't a fluke.
I have the same observation, Kawhi's offense was great last night, but defensively he seemed forcing the issue too much, trying to generate easy baskets through steals.
Best defensive player out there. Good Kawhi. 40 mins the whole game and held the mavs to 83 points.
Thank you for the game grades.
Great writeup.
Nice pics
How much true stock do we put into this game with the Mavericks missing Parsons?
thanks for the writeup, keep it up
Just a fantastic write-up. Great format with pics. Professional level stuff.
Forever Man... I love it. They need to start using the Clapton song as his theme song. He really is timeless.
Thanks. Fun write up and observations.
Thank you for the grades! Will read slower after the feast...for now Happy Thanskgiving to all Spurs related people!
Patty is quickly becoming one of my least favorite all time spurs
He had some bright spots though. Overall that starting unit were a 5 man wrecking crew last night on D.
Much thanks for the write-up & grades....
Although Kawhi is capable of wreaking havoc on D, this was not the only game this season when his effort seemed spotty, a little lackadaisical at times. On the other hand his down rotation and steal of a pass intended for Zaza in the lane when the Mavs were making a run in the 4th was a big moment. I think it is simply a matter of energy. The guy has a certain amount of it. In past years he expended most of it on the defensive end. But now that we rely on him to be a big scorer, he expends more on the offensive end and simply doesn't have it to expend on D at the same level he has in the past. Plus, his minutes are up significantly.
Couldn't watch, had to listen on WOAI, which is exciting but yoy miss allot. A well done, thorough write up such as this one, as always, is greatly appreciated. Hope to see the bench guys get their mojo back in Denver.
Excellent presentation. Thanks for taking the time and putting forth the effort. For the most part, my eyes saw performances that match your grades. But I cannot agree with your assessment of Pop. Carlisle nearly beat Pop on the back end of a BtoB on our home court. I thought Pop failed to force Carlisle's hand at any point in the game, and he failed to respond well to Carlisle's moves. You may love the fact that Pop played Kawhi for 40 minutes, but I was very sorry to see it. And playing an absolutely dead Manu for 28 minutes almost cost us the game. Over-playing Manu like this will kill both him and the Spurs in the long run. And it ain't gonna do Kawhi any good by the playoffs, either. Pop as Thibs earns a D from me.
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